


Nothing Doth Fade (But Suffers a Sea-Change)

by notanightlight



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Angst, Gigolas Week, M/M, secrets are poisonous things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1220221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notanightlight/pseuds/notanightlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gimli has always heard stories about the seals that lived near the cliffs of Castle Durin.  “They aren’t what they seem,” they’d tell him.  Gimli never knew what to think of those stories, until the night he met a stranger on the shore, with the sea in his eyes and moonlight on his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my lovely betas Jeza-red and Crystal! Seriously you guys kept me sane!
> 
> Title inspired by Ariel's song in The Tempest
> 
> Edit: Fisheyed (aka Melethnin on tumblr) made some absolutely beautiful cover art for this fic! Check it out here: http://mellethnin.tumblr.com/post/167889223258/a-song-of-the-sea-inspired-poster-cover-thing

Gimli had always heard stories about the seals that lived near the cliffs by Castle Durin.

“They aren’t what they seem,” his mother would say, as he watched them sunning themselves on the rocks.  There was a strange dark line of markings down every belly he could see.

“Selkies,” his elders whispered, as they nodded towards the groups of seals collecting on the sands.

“Aye,” his uncle answered, “and the King of Selkies amongst them.  Bigger than all the others.”

He would lean in close to Gimli and, with a twinkle in his eye, whisper, “Sometimes when the moon is just right, he walks out of the sea to speak with the head of Clan Durin.  Discusses the ancient treaty between them.  With a crown upon his head and cloaked in robes of seaweed and fishermen’s nets, decorated with all the treasures of the deep.”

As he grew, Gimli never knew what to think of these stories.

Sometimes a seal swam close to the boat as he set out crab and lobster pots, winking at him before flipping away, and he wondered if he should heed them.

Other times he watched them flopping around on the shore, bumping into each other and chasing each other around the sands, and wondered if he should dismiss them.

Late on a summer’s night, as Gimli laid in his bed, strange singing wafted through the open windows of his father’s house, and he wondered if it would be better not to know.

He never gathered the courage to ask Thorin if he really had a treaty with a Selkie King.

It wasn’t until Gimli’s twenty-second year that the stories became something solid.

…………………………………………….

He was on his way back to his father’s house, his coat pulled close around him as the winds whipped across the dale and over the cliffs towards the sea.  He clutched a bundle close to his chest, a brooch for his mother’s birthday secured inside it, set with an emerald at its heart.

The sun had already dipped beneath the horizon, as he tried to hurry home before it became too late.

His mind was focused on figuring out where to hide his parcel when his foot caught on a branch, blown onto the path by the night’s fierce winds.  Gimli was sent sprawling and his parcel flew from his grasp.

He scrambled onto his knees, the wind tossing his wild red hair about as he searched for the precious bundle.

He spotted it near the cliffs’ edge, but when he picked it up, the brooch was no longer inside.  Panic and disbelief filled him as he frantically searched the area for it.  It couldn’t have gone over the edge, but the more he looked, the more he knew that it had fallen.

Gimli stared down the steep cliffs.  It was more than forty feet to the shoreline below.  The small cove was cradled by the the cliff walls, cut off from the beaches that led to the docks where his clan’s boats were moored.

He ran a frustrated hand over his beard.

Gimli searched the edge for any way down that wouldn’t leave him with a broken neck.  He pushed aside the branches of a ragged old shrub and was surprised to see what looked like the start of a narrow path.

There didn’t seem to be any better option, so he started along it, placing every step carefully as he slowly made his way down the cliff.

He had never been more grateful to feel sand beneath his boots as when he reached the bottom.  

Gimli cast his eyes over the small cove, made even more strange by the moonbeams setting the sand alight with a pale purple glow and the wind moaning above his head.

He was startled to see that he was not alone.  

A little ways away from the sheltered end of the path a slender young man sat upon the rocks.  Moonlight glistened off of his pale skin, and golden hair spilled over his shoulders.  

Gimli was transfixed by the sight of the stranger, unclothed except for what appeared to be the remains of a sail draped around him.

It wasn’t until a glint of green light caught his eye that he realized that his mother’s brooch was being turned over in the stranger’s hands.

“That is not yours!” Gimli blurted out, and then cursed his brashness.

The stranger’s head whipped up to look at him with rich blue eyes that seemed to hold the very sea pooled within them.

The stranger blinked at him.  Then glanced at the brooch before looking back at Gimli.  

“It is beautiful,” he said, running a finger over the silverwork surrounding the gem.

“It is for my mother,” Gimli replied, taking a tentative step forwards.

The stranger quickly slid off the rocks, set the brooch upon them, and backed several steps away from it.  The whole time he kept his gaze fixed on Gimli.

Gimli walked slowly towards the rocks as if he were approaching a startled horse.  Every so often the stranger would scurry back another few steps as the distance between them shrunk.

Finally, Gimli’s fingers closed over the brooch.  He wrapped it up in its leather bundle and stowed it securely in his coat pocket.

“Thank you,” he said softly, “I had to save for a long time to afford this.  I do not know what I would have done if it was truly lost.”

“You are… welcome,” the stranger replied, unsurely.

Gimli took a deep breath unwilling to break the sharp tension between them by turning away.  “I have never seen you before,” he pointed out for the sake of having something to say.

“I have seen you before,” the stranger replied, “But I do not know you.”

“Gimli,” he said, giving a short bow, the rocks still between them, “of the Clan Durin.”

The stranger bowed in return, watching Gimli warily before saying, “I am Legolas.”

“Legolas,” Gimli murmured, getting a feel for the strange name in his mouth.  “What brought you here, of all places?”

“The moon,” Legolas sighed, looking up to where it hung heavy and bright in the sky, “I wanted to sing to the moon, and here is a perfect place to do so.”

He glanced over at Gimli and continued, “I did not expect anyone to come by and drop treasures upon me.”

A smile quirked the corners of Gimli’s mouth, “I apologize if you suffered any bruises due to my clumsiness.”

“No,” Legolas said, shaking his head, “I suffered no injury.  I am glad for this chance meeting.  It was beautiful to see, and you are new to talk to.  My family are very dear to me, but sometimes I feel I can predict every word from their mouths.”

“I know that feeling well.  Do you come to this spot often,” Gimli asked.

“Yes,” Legolas replied, “It is a favored place of mine.”

“Then perhaps I will come talk with you again, now that I know the way,” Gimli said, before quickly adding, “If you would not mind.”

The barest of smiles appeared on the strange man’s pale face as he replied, “I think I would enjoy that.”

“Then I shall take my leave for now,” Gimli said as he turned back towards the path, “And see you again, Legolas.”

“Look for me when the moon is bright enough for you to see your way,” the stranger called as Gimli began his climb.

Once he was back at the top of the cliffs Gimli looked down for one last sight of the golden haired man, but saw nothing but the waves lapping at the shore.

He returned home and stowed the brooch until it was time to give it to his mother.

As he turned out the lamp at his bedside, he wondered if he would hear singing that night, should he open his window.

……………………………………………...

Gimli waited three nights before he snuck back down to the sheltered cove.  He had half-way convinced himself that the night with the brooch was a dream.  Only a strange and fantastical delusion brought on by a bump to the head when he tripped.  That he would return to the cliffs and find the sands below completely inaccessible.  But lo and behold, hidden behind the weathered old shrub was the start of the narrow toe path.

To his continued amazement, when he worked his way down to the sands below, there was Legolas, sprawled languidly on his back over the same rocks as before.  He was just as strange and ethereal as Gimli recalled.  

Gimli approached him slowly, still not convinced that this wouldn’t all disappear like so much smoke in the air.  Before he was halfway there, those ocean blue eyes slid open and regarded Gimli with curiosity.  Legolas rolled onto his stomach, a tentative smile on his lips.

“I did not think you would return,” Legolas said.

“I did not think that you were real,” Gimli replied.

Legolas laughed, a surprisingly rich, throaty sound.  “I am most certainly real!”

Gimli couldn’t help but grin.  “Then I’m glad I returned.”

Gimli took a seat on a rock just a little ways from the one Legolas seemed to favor, still conscious of the wary undercurrent between them.

There they talked about their families.  Gimli talked about the misadventures his cousins had gotten him into, and Legolas told him about the merry chases he would lead his brothers on.  The more they discussed, the more Gimli learned about the strange young man and yet, the more questions Gimli seemed to have.  Legolas seemed to have a talent for dodging questions and answering them in the vaguest of ways.  Gimli would ask a question and several moments later realize that he had completely forgotten what it was.

Somehow it managed to be just as intriguing as it was frustrating.

They talked until the moon began to sink low in the sky, and Gimli had to return home while there was still light enough to do so.  

He left with the promise to return again, and soon.

………………………………………………

The next night, Gimli went to the cove again.  And the night after that, and the night after that, and every night following.

He and Legolas would talk about anything that sprung to mind, and bit by bit, Gimli learned more about the strange man.

He learned that Legolas was raised by his father and brothers, but not who they were.

He learned that Legolas’s favorite food was fish, but not how he liked it prepared.

He learned that Legolas had lived his whole life by the sea, but not where his home was.

He learned that Legolas loved to sing, but not what his songs meant.

Soon, Gimli found himself calling Legolas, “friend,” but certain suspicions had grown along with their friendship.  Strange inconsistencies began to form a picture in Gimli’s mind of just what his new friend could be.

When he started to notice a particular seal with a spot shaped like the leaf of a birch tree on its throat watching him whenever he was near the shore, he became convinced his suspicions were true.

He wondered if he should be bothered by it.  It couldn’t be smart to keep the company of things that weren’t, well, human.

But when Gimli found himself grabbing a lantern on the night of the new moon and making his way to the cove, he knew it didn’t matter.  Seeing Legolas had become the best part of Gimli’s day.  He had to admit it to himself, he had fallen for Legolas.

Even if he was a… Selkie.

The realization cast a certain sadness on Gimli’s thoughts of Legolas, because no matter how close they should get, no Selkie would ever give up the sea.  Not even if Legolas somehow came to return his regards.  

Gimli began to feel only bitterness at the sight of rolling waves, but continued to meet with the unearthly object of his affections.

………………………………………..

Nearly two months after Gimli first dropped a brooch into a Selkie’s hands, everything changed.

Gimli had spent the day in the smithy with his father, fighting off the exhaustion that had become a part of his daily life, and then met with his cousins, Fili and Kili, for a drink at the local inn.  He traded jokes and stories with them over a single ale before excusing himself, as he always did, with a claim that the day’s work had left him too weary to stay out any longer.  

He waved at the pair from the doorway before heading off into the night, towards Castle Durin and, more importantly, the sheltered cove.

In fact, nothing that Gimli did that evening was out of the ordinary.  It was in his cousins’ actions that the vital differences laid.

Fili watched Gimli’s departure with a sharp gaze, and sipped his ale contemplatively.  

“Where do you suppose he’s off to,” he asked with a nod towards the door.

“Home, like always,” Kili answered, flagging down the red headed server with his most charming smile, “Our dear cousin has become dull and responsible.”

“Maybe,” Fili replied in a considering tone, “Or maybe that is just what he wants us to think.”

Kili ordered another ale, watching the server walk off before snorting, “What else would he be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Fili said, leaning back in his chair, “but it’s not what he’s been telling us, at least, not if what I heard from his da is right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well his da made a joke to me about keeping Gimli out so late all the time,” he raised his eyebrows, “Apparently Gimli never gets home before Gloin gets to sleep.”

Kili leaned forward, eyes widening, “But that would mean… Gimli’s sneaking out!”

Fili leaned in conspiratorially, “For months now,” he confirmed, “and you know what that means.”

“We better go now if we have any chance of following him!” Kili exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

Fili grinned and threw some coins down on the table as Kili called to the server to hold off on that ale.  The pair dashed out the door.

They hurried down the road, managing to catch sight of the moonlight illuminating Gimli’s red hair.

The two watched as he veered off the dirt road towards the cliffs, making sure not to attract his attention.

They made their way to the point their cousin diverted from, but found no trace of him.  Fili glanced towards the cliff’s forbidding edge.

“You do not think…”

Kili shrugged in response, and quietly crossed to the ledge, peering over it before quickly pulling his head back.  He motioned urgently for Fili to come closer.

Fili hurried to his brother’s side and asked, “Well?” in a hushed voice.

“He is there.  Almost three quarters way down the cliff,” Kili replied, just as quietly, “But there was someone else already down there!”

“What!” Fili had to fight to keep his voice soft.  He leaned over the edge to see for himself, and darted back quickly to avoid being seen.

Kili had seen truly.  Gimli was steadily approaching the bottom of a narrow path that zig-zagged down the face of the cliff, and an unfamiliar, ethereal man, clothed in worn canvas watched his progress from the bottom.

“You saw him, right?”

Fili nodded.

“Do you know who it is?”

“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” Fili replied, shaking his head.

“But if Gimli has seen him every night for months, he must live nearby,” Kili insisted, “Surely we would’ve seen him somewhere.”

Fili rubbed a thoughtful hand over his yellow beard.  “If we could get closer we might be able to learn something of what’s going on,” he paused to consider the drop off before shaking his head, “We won’t be able to hear a thing from up here, but there is no possible way that we can follow Gimli’s path without being spotted.”

His brother was silent for a moment before saying, “There’s another way down.”

“What?”

“But we have to double back a bit,” Kili continued, turning as if he hadn’t heard his brother’s question.

Fili had to jog a bit to catch up as Kili lead him back down the road they had traveled to where the high cliffs sank into shallower slopes.  Nestled into the side of one such slope, well out of sight of the road, was the small mouth of a cave.

Fili had to duck his head and stay stooped over as he followed his brother inside.

“How did you know of this place?” he asked the back of his brother’s dark hair.

“I found it when we were still lads,” Kili said, straightening as the roof of the cavern suddenly heightened and the passage simultaneously grew narrower.

Fili suddenly made a connection with a memory of a wee sullen Kili trudging his way back into their house, after disappearing hours before in a huff.

“This is the place, isn’t it,” he asked, “The one you used to vanish to when you were cross with me.”

A soft laugh echoed around them.

“And you never would have found it if it wasn’t for our cousin and his own mysterious vanishings,” Kili replied smugly.

Kili motioned for silence as the cave finally opened into the moonlight, slipping through a crack in the cliff face, large enough for a man to walk through.  It was on the opposing side of the cove from the end of Gimli’s path, hidden from view by some fairly sizable boulders, likely resting where they had fallen decades ago.

A grin slid over Kili’s face as he carefully peeked over one of them.

“Oh you should see dear Gimli’s face!” he murmured as loudly as he dared with their targets so close, “I’d say our Gimli is fairly _mooning_ over this man.”

Fili joined him, and had to bite his lip to contain his amusement.  “Oh yes, there’s no doubt he’s completely besotted.”

The sounds of the two oblivious men on the beach wafted over the sound of the sea, full of fond tones, but indistinct words.  Occasionally their laughter would ring out, rich and clear, but other than that, no real sense of their conversation could be made.

“Still can’t hear them,” Kili whispered in frustration.

He tried to edge closer, crouching low and creeping around the side of the boulder, when he felt something soft beneath his fingers.  He looked down as he ran his hand over the familiar texture of fur.  

There, nestled between the two boulders he intended to squeeze through, was a carefully folded dappled grey pelt.  Kili stared at it, uncomprehending, trying to puzzle out what a fur would be doing just sitting out on the shore.

A bark of throaty laughter broke over the cove and sudden realization swept over him.  He stared at the skin, the _sealskin_ , with a combination of wonder and horror.  All of the sounds around him faded away until he could hear only the rushing of the waves and the echoes of countless stories ringing in his head.

They were true!  They were all true!  Selkies lived off the shores near Castle Durin.  Shape shifters that could walk among them.  Could slip away into the depths never to be seen again.  Children of the sea.  The most ancient of treaties of the Clan Durin.  The seal people.

And the skin of one lay beneath his fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Fili nearly jumped when his brother whispered, “We should go,” without warning.

“What do you mean?  We gave up a night at the inn for this, and you just want to abandon it?” he asked incredulously.

“Look, it’s cold, and it’s late, and it’s not like we can hear what they’re saying anyways.  Let’s just go,” Kili said, giving the blonde an imploring look.

Fili looked at the way Kili was clutching his coat so tightly around himself, and sighed, “Fine, we’ll just try another night.”

“Yeah,” Kili murmured as he followed Fili into the crack in the cliff face, “another night.”

The sound of a joyful, rich laugh chased Kili deeper into the cavern.  He tightened his arms around his middle, and the soft pelt tucked there beneath his coat.

………………………………………

Gimli sighed to himself as he carefully picked his way along the path towards the top of the cliff.  Even with the memory of Legolas’s happy chatter, rich laughter, and sweet voice raised in strange song still ringing in his head, parting always cast a bitter shadow on their meetings.

He nearly stumbled as a sharp, “Ai!” sliced through the salty air.  Legolas’s voice as he had never heard it before, made harsh with distress.

He hurried back down the ledge as quickly as he dared, dropping the last few feet to the sand.  Legolas was crouched in sand by some boulders on the far side of the cove, head swinging from side to side as he searched through the shadows.  

Gimli raced to his friend’s side, trying to spot what brought this panic on.

“Legolas!  What is the matter?” he asked resting a hand on a pale shoulder.

Legolas looked up at him with wide, desperate eyes and a look of dread on his face.

“It’s gone!” he said, a frantic note in his voice, “It’s gone!  It’s lost!”

He returned to searching the sands, head whipping from side to side as he skirted the edges of the stones.

“What?” Gimli tried to make sense of Legolas’s frantic rambling, “What is it you’ve lost?”

But Legolas did not appear to hear him.  Wild words spilled from his lips, “It cannot be gone, it cannot!  It must be here!  It could not have disappeared!  Ai, ai it’s gone!” and his pale hands began digging through the sand in a panicked flurry.

Finally Gimli grabbed the frantic man by shoulders, and held him so they were face to face.

“Legolas!  Breathe,” He tried to keep his voice calm and steady, “I cannot help if I do not know what it is you have lost.”

Legolas’s chest rose with his rapid breaths, “My... it’s gone.  My, my…” he looked as though he was having a terrible struggle choosing how to say what he meant, “My… my way home.”

His eyes slid to the side.

“It was here.  I always keep it here. But now it’s not and I can’t… How will I…” his voice cracked and broke.  Tears built up in those ocean blue eyes.

Gimli cupped Legolas’s pale face with one hand, and gently ran a thumb over his cheek as he prepared to broach the one topic they had always avoided.

“Legolas,” he murmured as kindly as he could, “is it your skin that you’ve lost?”

Legolas sucked in a surprised breath, and his eyes went wide for a moment before a pitiful expression settled on his face.  He nodded miserably as a sob escaped his throat.

Gimli felt the slight form start trembling beneath his hands and pulled Legolas close so his head could rest in the crook of his neck.  He moved his hand over Legolas’s back in a soothing manner.  He whispered soft comforting things as tears dampened his neck.

It hurt to see Legolas so distressed, and his heart ached with every shaking murmur of “It’s gone,” that left his poor love.  Yet, even as he did his best to comfort the Selkie in his arms, a secret hope was growing inside him.  A hope that the sealskin really _was_ gone, for good.  A part of him was truly ashamed of himself for thinking such a thing, but if Legolas no longer belonged to the sea, then maybe, just maybe, he could belong to Gimli.

He held Legolas closer.

Gimli waited until most of Legolas’s shaking had ceased and the only sounds that came from him were quiet sniffs, before easing him back so he could see his face again.  

“There now,” he said, wiping the moisture from pale cheeks, “The light is falling low, and it will do no good to search for it in the dark.  Why don’t you come to my father’s house for the night?  When the sun is up, I will come back with you and we may look for your skin with good light and clear heads.”

Legolas watched him with wide eyes, looking fairly lost.

“Would that be alright?” Gimli prompted.

The Selkie worried his lip between his teeth, glanced to the shoreline and back, before nodding.  

Gimli shrugged off his coat, “Then you will need this,” he said offering it to Legolas, “The winds are cold up there.”

He watched as Legolas slid the dark red coat over his makeshift canvas clothing, and then turned to lead the way back to the path as Legolas trailed slowly behind him.

“Mind your feet and keep ahold of the cliff,” he said as he began the climb, “it gets very narrow in places.”

Legolas stood at the bottom, gazing out to the rolling, ink black waters, before he turned to the rock and followed.

It was a shock to Gimli’s mother and father when their son woke them to ask if his friend could stay the night as he had nowhere else to go.  He introduced the strange, pale man, dressed in an old canvas sail and their son’s coat as ‘Legolas.’  He said he would let his friend take his bed and sleep on the floor himself, and when asked how he came to be in such a state, he would only say that he had been ‘stranded upon the shore.’  

Questions and mysteries trailed after the two young men up the stairs.

………………………………………..

The next day, the pair went back to the cove, as Gimli had promised.  Legolas was clothed in spare clothing at Gimli’s ma’s insistence.  The trousers were too short in the leg, and the shirt too broad in the shoulders to fit correctly.  Gimli privately thought that it was almost unfair how Legolas still managed to look breathtaking in the ill-fitting attire.

They scoured every corner of the cove.

Before the sun set, they had found practically every secret the cove could hold; the small outcropping some seabird had built its nest upon, the place where a patch of nettles grew stubbornly out of the cliff face, the large crack in the wall that lead out to the slopes of the cliffs.  Gimli spent some time grumbling about the latter discovery and lamenting that he had used a more difficult path for so long.

Despite this, the only sealskins they saw were those of the seals who would bob out of the water and watch them with dark, focused eyes.

The next day, they returned to search again.  

Legolas waded out until the water lapped at his chest, and ducked under the surface to search the hidden sands below for any trace of his skin.  Gimli watched from the shore as the blonde head disappeared below the waves, resurfaced, and then repeated the pattern.  He tried to ignore the subtle anxiety that blossomed in his chest every time Legolas vanished from sight.

Periodically, seals would approach Legolas, to swim around him or nudge him with their heads.

Gimli did not comment on them.

When they returned to the house, empty handed again, Gimli’s ma insisted they warm up by the hearth.  Gimli could give her no satisfactory explanation when she asked why his guest was soaked from head to toe.

The third day, they tried searching another beach, thinking that perhaps the skin had been carried there by the tide, or a curious animal.  

Seals followed their progress from the sea, darting ahead before doubling back.

No sign of the skin was found.

By the fourth day, Gimli could no longer afford to stay away from his job in the smithy.  He left along with his father, promising Legolas that he would find him afterwards.

Throughout the day, Gimli could barely focus on his work.  His mind kept conjuring up worries about Legolas finding his skin and disappearing back into the waiting arms of the sea while Gimli was away.  

After they closed the smithy for the night, he hurried to the shore Legolas had said he would be searching.  It was with immense relief that he spied the familiar figure walking amongst the sands.

The days continued in this manner for a week, by which point Gimli’s ma had made a shirt and set of trousers to fit Legolas.  

Everyday Gimli worried that he might return home to find Legolas gone, but every night he found a downcast Selkie walking along the shores.

The only remarkable thing to happen as the days passed was when Gimli had gone to the shore in search of Legolas, only to find him kneeling in the sands with his arms thrown around a large seal’s neck.  Gimli had turned away, not wanting to watch his friend’s shoulders hitch as he muffled sobs into already wet fur.

Especially when Gimli felt so much relief at the sight of Legolas still bound to the land.

The morning of the twentieth day since the skin was lost, Gimli grabbed his coat and asked what beach he should look for Legolas on, as he had done everyday that he worked in the smithy.

Legolas told him that he would not be at any beach that day.

Gimli asked him what he meant, and Legolas told him that he could not handle anymore disappointment.  His heart could not take one more day of searching, only to return empty handed.  

Gimli had reluctantly left Legolas behind, and trusted that his mother would keep an eye on the despondent Selkie.  Gimli had long since told them the truth about Legolas, as no tale he could come up with could possibly hope to explain their situation.  They had promised to keep the truth amongst themselves, at least.

When he returned home, he found Legolas sitting in the same chair he left him in, staring out the window towards the sea.

“He’s barely moved all day, not even to eat,” his ma confided in him, “I gave him some soup earlier, trying to get anything in him.  He drank the broth, but left the potatoes and carrots still in the bowl.”  Her warm eyes studied the pale young man, who still sat oblivious to their conversation.  “Poor thing.  He looks so lost.”

“It cannot be easy,” Gimli agreed.

He walked over to the chair, wrapping his arms around Legolas in a secure embrace.  The blonde leaned back against his chest, silently watching the sky go dark.  He did not make a sound until well after the stars appeared, when the sound of bellowing came from the shore.

It was a terrible, anguished sound that sent chills down Gimli’s spine, but it was only then that Legolas allowed tears to fall down his face.

…………………………………………….

The very next day, Gimli was surprised to find Thorin, the Head of Clan Durin, at his father’s door.

He had never known cousin Thorin the way he knew Fili and Kili.  He respected Thorin, and it could quite possibly be said that he was a little in awe of him, but he never really considered himself familiar with Thorin.

“I hear that you have a guest, Gloin,” the Clan Head said as he entered their house, “One who has been with you for many weeks.”

Gimli’s eyes flickered to the stairs that lead to his room and Legolas.  Although the Selkie never took much time to think about what clothing he put on, he could spend ages brushing out his hair.  Even more so now that he had no where to hurry off to and the use of a hand mirror.  Legolas had been nearly entranced the first time he saw his own reflection.  He had been sure it was some kind of magic.  It had been one of the bright points in his friend’s long despondency.

“A friend of my lad Gimli’s, who had nowhere else to stay,” Gloin said as he offered Thorin a chair, “It does not look like he can return to his own home, so we have let him use ours.”

Gimli was grateful for his da’s discretion, although he knew he would never outright lie to the Head of the Clan.

Thorin made himself comfortable in the proffered chair.

“In my experience, it often bodes ill if a man cannot return to his home.”

Gloin made a concerned sound as his eyebrows drew together, “Legolas may be a bit odd, but not dangerous.  He has not caused any trouble or mischief while he’s been within our walls.”

“So ‘Legolas’ is his name,” Thorin murmured.

Gimli got the distinct impression that the Clan Head knew more than he let on.  He seemed to already have an idea about the information he was fishing for.  Gimli wondered how he came by it, seeing as Legolas had never really met anyone aside from his ma and da.

“Sometimes men can bring trouble down upon themselves without ever meaning to,” Thorin continued.

“He’s just a poor lad with no way home,” Gimli’s ma insisted.

“Gimli,” the fair voice was accompanied by the sound of feet descending the stairs, “how long do you think…”

Legolas’s voice trailed off and he paused on the bottom step as his oceanic eyes spotted the stranger sitting at the table.  The slender young man drew himself up taller as Thorin’s shrewd, stormy gaze swept over him.

“Aye,” Thorin’s voice was quiet and intent, “I can see why you might have trouble getting home, Legolas.”

Legolas cocked his head to one side in confusion.

Thorin snorted and shook his head.  He turned to Gimli.

“Do not be so concerned, I am not going to send your friend away, but as you brought him here, I expect you to take responsibility for him.”

Gimli nodded.

“Good, then,” Thorin stood, “I’ll take my leave.  Be well, cousins.”

And with that he left, leaving behind confusion and hope in Gimli’s mind.  It was the closest to a blessing for Legolas to stay with their clan as Gimli could hope for.  For the first time it truly seemed possible that he would have time enough for his love to be returned.

……………………………………..

It would be a lie to say that Legolas became an easy part of their lives.

He tolerated clothing, although Gimli believed that was only because Legolas enjoyed the bright colors, but would not abide any boots.  He would have walked everywhere barefoot if Gimli did not constantly remind him.

His mother was in a constant battle to try to get any kind of vegetable into Legolas, but the Selkie seemed to have a supernatural ability to keep anything other than meat from passing his lips.  Even then, he barely touched it unless it was fish.  He would eat any kind of fish, and had been convinced to try shellfish, but without ever looking like he tried, potatoes, turnips, and greens and fruits of any kind were avoided.  Of course, that was after the battle to convince Legolas that forks and knives were to be used for eating.

Gimli also worried about how melancholy Legolas became if he was left to his own devices for too long.

It hurt whenever Gimli found him so grieved, but still, the good outweighed the bad by so very much.

Legolas always seemed to find the simplest things fascinating.  He could spend hours watching Gimli’s ma cooking, just trying to figure out how it was done, and the first time he was in the same space as a horse his eyes nearly bugged from his face.

Gimli loved the enthusiasm that Legolas had every time they talked.

When it became impractical for Legolas to stay home everyday, Gimli and his da decided to find some work for him to do.

Taking him to the smithy was disastrous.  Although Legolas marveled at the forms the two redheads created, he skittered away from the fires and cringed at the clanging of metal on metal.

It was Gimli’s ma who suggested that Legolas might be better suited to setting out the crab and lobster pots as Gimli had as a youth.  It should have been no surprise that being on the sea came naturally to the Selkie.  He always knew exactly where to drop the pots so they would be drawn up full.

Rumors of the strange man living under Gloin’s roof were whispered through the village, but none dared say them where they could be overheard.  After all, those who met the pale boy seemed to find him pleasant, even if everyone knew he might be… more than what he appeared.  Still, great stories were spun by the local gossips about how the strange man came to be there.

The first time Gimli made Legolas laugh again, with some silly antic or another, felt like the sweetest of victories.  By that time, the two of them had already moved from having one sleep on the floor to sharing the bed.

Then one time, Gimli caught Legolas just gazing at him with a fond smile.  Gimli asked him why he looked so, and he answered, “I had thought my life was over, when my skin went missing, but you have given me a home again.  With you I am alive.”

Gimli had thought his heart would burst from joy.

………………………………..

After a few months, Legolas and Gimli moved out of Gloin’s house and into a small cottage, just big enough for the two of them.  They promised Gimli’s ma that they would visit often.  The kitchen was well stocked so Legolas could try out all he had learned, although he still would not eat any vegetables himself, and there was a single bedroom just around the corner from the hearth.

Gimli had never felt so happy, so honestly content in all his life, and from the way Legolas smiled at him, he would have bet that the same went for Legolas.

Even though some nights, Legolas would stray from their warm home and wander down to the sands of the shoreline, almost as if he were in a daze.  Sometimes it would take hours before he returned.

It was on such a night, exactly a year since the Selkie had been stranded on the land, when Legolas felt the urge to go listen to the haunting songs of his people and the rolling of the waves, that things changed.

Gimli had been sitting by the hearth, smoking his pipe, waiting for Legolas to return, when there came a sharp rapping from the door.

“It is not locked,” he called out.

He felt justifiably surprised when Kili bustled in, shutting the door firmly behind himself.

“Kili?” he asked, “What brings you here so late?”

His dark haired cousin looked at him with a combination of shame and regret on his face.

“If I were a better friend, I would not be,” Kili murmured, wrapping his arms firmly around his middle, “If I were less cowardly I would let you keep living in happy ignorance.”

“What kind of foolish talk is this?  You have ever been a dear friend to me and there is nothing that could change that,” Gimli said as he set his pipe aside, “Come here now.  What has gotten into your head?”

Kili snorted and took a seat in the chair across from his redheaded cousin.

“A secret, Gimli,” he sighed, “One I have tried to shut out of my thoughts, but cannot keep to myself any longer.”

“What do you mean?”

Kili reached inside of his jacket and pulled out a squarish bundle, wrapped in heavy paper and tied with twine.  The paper crinkled under his fingers as he clutched it.

“If I was braver, you would never see this,” he said, head ducked so he did not have to meet Gimli’s eyes.  “But it has been like an accusation, waiting for me at the bottom of my trunk for so very long.”

He looked up suddenly, eyes pained but determined.

“I am so sorry, Gimli.”

Kili held out the bundle, and Gimli took it from him, unsettled by his cousin’s unusual behavior.

Gimli opened the package carefully, and pulled away the paper to reveal a pelt of short, glossy, dappled grey fur.  He ran a hand over its soft surface, uncomprehending for a moment as he began to unfold it.  He froze as his eyes fell on a familiar spot, shaped like the leaf of a beech tree.  There was a slit in the pelt starting just below it.

He had never seen it like this before, empty of his love inside it, but he knew exactly what he would find if he unfolded it all.  A sealskin, completely intact save for a long slit down the stomach, edged on either side by dark markings.

Without taking his eyes off of the long missing skin, he managed to whisper a hoarse, “How?”

“You were being so secretive, Cousin,” Kili began, “You cannot blame us for getting curious.  We, Fili and I, followed you.  I did not mean to be cruel!  I just… it was right there, and I thought… no.  I didn’t think.  I just grabbed it.  I mean, it was like I stepped into one of those stories Balin is always telling.”

“So you and Fili have had it all this time,” Gimli said, still unable to lift his eyes.

“No!” Kili insisted, “Well, yes.  I mean, I’ve had it, but Fili did not know anything about it!  I hid it under my coat, and kept it stowed away ever since.  I swear the next day I could have kicked my own fool head for being so rash, but Legolas was already here!  How do you confess to someone that you stole their skin?

“And then, you seemed so happy having him here with us that I thought, maybe no one would ever have to know.  I thought I could just keep it tucked away until everyone forgot about it, but… he’s real.”

Gimli looked up at that.

“He’s real,” Kili continued, looking miserable, “He’s not some fairy tale thing with a pretty face.  He’s got a real personality, and he’s always fun to talk to when you bring him to the inn, and he gets so sad when he thinks no one is looking.”

“Of course he is real,” Gimli murmured.

Kili gave a small, unhappy smile, “I am so sorry, Gimli, to push my secret on to you.”

Gimli did not know what to say.  The one thing that kept his love upon the land with him, and the cause of that love’s deepest grief had been with his cousin all along.  And now it was in his hands.

He could feel his heart break at the thought of how empty their little cottage would be once Legolas was gone.

“Gimli,” Kili spoke up, his voice soft and low, “Please know that I say this out of only love and kinship.”

Gimli met his cousin’s dark eyes.

“Burn it.”

Gimli drew in a sharp gasp.

“For the sake of your heart, throw it in the fire.  I know Legolas has searched for it, but you have a good life, a happy one together.  Just let this burn.”

Kili stood then and turned to the door, he stopped before he stepped outside.

“I am sorry, Cousin.  If I were braver, you would never have to make this choice.”

Then he left, closing the door behind him.

Gimli merely sat in his chair, gripping the sealskin firmly in his hands as he stared at the merrily flickering fire.

……………………………………….

“Gimli love, what are you doing still awake?”  Legolas’s voice floated through the quiet cottage.  He glided over to Gimli, resting a hand on his shoulder.

Gimli covered Legolas’s hand with his own, letting his gaze drift from the warm flames to Legolas’s sea blue eyes.  

“I could not sleep, my heart,” he answered softly, “It may be some time until I find my rest tonight.”

Legolas gave him a fond, gentle smile.  His features seemed to dance in the flickering golden light, like something out of dream.  Gimli found himself awed all over again.

“I am so glad you’re real,” he whispered.

Legolas bent and pressed a kiss to Gimli’s brow.  “I am so lucky to have met you,” Legolas murmured, letting his forehead rest against Gimli’s, “I do not know what I would have done without you.”

Gimli squeezed the fine boned hand beneath his own before Legolas stood up and slipped out of his grasp.  Legolas padded across the floor to the bedroom, barefoot, predictably.  Gimli smiled at the familiar sight.

“Try not to stay up too late,” he called, before he disappeared through the doorway.

Gimli’s smile slipped off his face, and he took a deep, shaky breath before turning his eyes back to the crackling, popping fire.

This year with Legolas had been the happiest in Gimli’s life, and as much as he knew that Legolas longed for the sea, he could not bear to let him go.

At least, not yet.

He set about banking the fire for the night, pausing to rest his hand on the one loose hearthstone that hid the sealskin he could not bring himself to destroy.

Just one more year with Legolas by his side, and he would give him back his skin.  

He made his way to their bedroom with a heavy tread.

He just needed one more year.


	3. Chapter 3

A year passed, in which Legolas’s face became well known at the inn, as did his inability to hold his drink.  Gimli became partner in his father’s smithy, rather than just an apprentice.  Legolas learned to puzzle out the sense of humor Fili and Kili seemed to share.  And the both of them finally divined a way to sleep together without any of their limbs becoming leadened by the morning time.

The hearthstone, and its secrets, remained undisturbed.

Another year passed, in which a new lad, Ori, began to come with the four to their nights at the inn.  He and Legolas bonded over a mutual dislike for green food.  Legolas hung a strange set of shells all strung together from the edge of their roof, so they clinked and chimed against each other when the winds blew in off the sea.  Gimli finally got him to ride a horse and began building a small stable so they could house one of their own.

The skin was not brought into the light.

The years seemed to fly past quicker than Gimli could count, each filled with new adventures.

He and Legolas stood with Fili as they watched Kili wed the redheaded server from the Inn.  It was a joyous event full of smiles and laughter.

They were finally able to afford a horse, a strong grey, who also seemed to receive the majority of vegetables that Legolas left on his plate.  Gimli teased him for blatantly bribing Arod to prefer Legolas over himself.  Legolas would laugh and tell him he did not need bribery for that.

Legolas became a good luck talisman for the fishermen of Clan Durin, for whenever he was on the boats, they brought in the biggest hauls and found the largest shellfish in their pots.  He became a favorite of the Clan’s children, who would race to the docks to catch a glimpse of the retinue of seals that ever flocked his boats.  Legolas would string shells together to make little gifts for the children that they could wear round their necks.  In the evenings, Gimli would help him fasten them so they would not have to worry about them slipping free.

The children grew taller, and were eventually replaced by new children in the clan.  One of them was Kili’s.

Every now and then, Clan Head Thorin would drop by.  He never gave a reason, but Gimli had the distinct impression that he was checking up on them, or checking up on Legolas, at least.  It made Gimli even more convinced that there really was some treaty between Clan Durin and the Seal People.

Ori left them to become a scholar at a nearby monastery, which no one was completely surprised by.

One day, Gimli noticed that Legolas had forgotten to take off his boots when he came home to the cottage.  He couldn’t tell if he found that amusing, or sad.

Time passed, and small creases began to appear at the corners of their eyes.

And although the sealskin stayed hidden beneath the hearthstone for all of those years, it loomed in Gimli’s mind, like a patient spector waiting for the right night to appear.

Gimli saw the times when sea blue eyes dimmed, and nothing he or any of their friends could do brought a smile to Legolas’s face.  He spent nights up, staring into the fire as he waited for Legolas to come back in from the shore, with sand and salt still clinging to pale skin.  He watched as Legolas knelt to run his hand almost reverently over the head of a slick grey seal, bobbing besides the boat, before he stepped back onto the dock.

Gimli saw all of the longing and sorrow that his dearest carried, and it ate at him inside to know that he could end all of that suffering at any moment, but would not dare to do so.

During those times, Gimli would remind himself that there were so many moments of joy.  That Legolas had a good life on the land, a good life with Gimli.

Because he could not let him go.  Every year that he gave himself to prepare for letting Legolas leave, only  showed him how much he could not fathom how he would survive it.

So he kept his secret, and prayed to forget it.

………………………………………

Nearly twenty years had passed since the night Legolas lost his home beneath the waves and had to start a new one ashore.  

He found it strange how it seemed to be both the longest and shortest stretch of time in his life.

Legolas ran a damp cloth over their heavy wooden table, lovingly carved by his Gimli’s hands.  He paused a moment to brush his fingers along the images of rolling waves carved into the border of it, and smiled.

He thought about the stories his brothers used to tell him when he was young, about Selkies who got trapped on the land.  How they were horded and displayed by humans the way hermit crabs do with the baubles upon their shells.  They used to scare him so badly that he would not come within a league of the land for days at a time.

He chuckled fondly at the memory of how cross Father would get with them, snapping at them to not tell stories of such things.  He would punish them with cleaning out one room or another in their halls.

Legolas wondered what his brothers would think of his life now, land-bound as it was.  Could they understand the contentment he found here?

He snorted, working to scrub off a particularly stubborn stain.  Of course they didn’t.  He knew that.  He saw the sadness in their eyes, the pity, when they watched him working in the boats.  And yes, Legolas knew that his longing for the sea, for his family, for their familiar halls would ever be an ache within his heart, but he had also found happiness on land.

His smile returned.  He had found love.  

To his brothers the land would never be more than the thrill of the forbidden as they dared each other to see who could get closest to the human village before racing back to the sea.  To Legolas, the land had become home.

He just wished he could see more of his family upon it.  It was an idle wish, as he knew none of his people would risk wandering the land with a sealskin unaccounted for.  Not even to comfort a friend.  Or a brother.

He bent his head to focus on a sticky spot, and let himself be absorbed in the work.  If their cottage was still in such a state when Gimli’s mother visited, she would tut at them and generally make them feel like a pair of unruly pups.  He wanted to make use of the time before Gimli came home from the smithy, knowing how easily they could get distracted.

Satisfied that the table would pass inspection, Legolas went to pick up the shell necklaces that had fallen off the mantle when Fili stumbled into it last night.  He absentmindedly righted a chair on his way, remembering how it had toppled when Tauriel snatched Kili from it for a dance.

He loved it when their friends came to their house to revel.  Legolas was aware that they were trying to keep his spirits high as this time of year approached, and loved them all the more for it.

As he knelt to retrieve the fallen necklaces when he noticed some stains on the hearth.  Some ale must have sloshed out of Fili’s mug.

He set the necklaces aside and began to scrub at the stains, trying to get the residue out of the seems in the stone.  As he worked, one of the stones jiggled loose.  His eyes widened and he tried to get it settled back into place right away.  The last thing he wanted was to have to explain to Gimli how he had broken the hearth.

As Legolas set the hearthstone back into place he heard a crunch from beneath it.

He paused, perplexed.

Carefully, he pulled the stone away, jostling it from side to side until it came completely free of the others. Beneath it was a package wrapped in brown paper, made brittle by heat and age, the source of the crunching sound.

Legolas felt the paper crumble beneath his fingers as he pulled the package from its hollow.   

He pulled back the first piece of paper and froze.

That little glimpse of steely grey was all he needed to see to know what had been so carefully hidden beneath the hearthstone.

His hands seemed to move without his command as they reverently discarded the old paper.

The skin beneath it was still supple as the night he last held it, its fur still glossy and soft, untouched by time.

He let his fingers caress it, as tears sprung to his eyes, stinging and salty.

All he could hear was the roar of the waves and the crying of the gulls.  All he could smell was briney sea spray.  All he could feel was cool water lapping at his skin.

All he knew was that he had his skin again, and it had been inside his own house.

The ice cold sensation of betrayal welled up inside him.

The seashells outside chimed together as a sea breeze shook them, and Legolas ran outside to greet it, his skin clutched to his chest.

He left his boots behind.

……………………………………………..

Gimli pulled open the door to the cottage.

“Legolas,” he called as he stepped inside, “I am home, Love.”

He was surprised that only silence was there to greet him.  On the days that Legolas was not out on the boats, he almost always welcomed Gimli home with a kiss and delighted chatter about whatever had happened that day.

A frown settled on Gimli’s face when he noticed Legolas’s boots still resting besides the doorway.  That usually meant that Legolas was still home.

“Legolas?” he tried calling again.  When there was still no answer, he felt an unsettled worry build up inside him.

He stepped further inside, as his eyes swept the cottage for signs of Legolas.  

Gimli’s heart stopped, his stomach sank like a stone tossed into the sea, as his gaze fell upon the empty hollow where the hearthstone once sat.

He had to reach out to steady himself, as his world tilted sharply on its ear.  Legolas was gone.  His beloved Selkie belonged to the sea once more.

No.  How could this have happened?

Gimli whirled on his heel and raced to Arod’s stable.  He had the grey saddled and charging towards the shore line faster than he could ever recall.

He did not know what he would do if he caught up to Legolas, or what he would say, but he could not just let him slip into the deep without a word passing between them.  He would not suffer this sundering quietly!  He would find something to say, anything, even if it was only to beg at Legolas’s feet.

He brought Arod to a halt at the mouth of the cavern entrance to their cove, jumped off and ran into the winding cavern.  He still clung to hope beyond all reason that Legolas would still be there.

Gimli stumbled out onto the sand, panting as his eyes swept the shoreline.

The only thing that greeted him was still, dark waters.

No fair, golden-haired Legolas.  Not even a single seal in sight.

Just the sound of Gimli’s own, harsh breathing disturbing the silence of the little cove.

Gimli felt as if his heart was being gouged from his chest.  He clawed at it with one hand as he buried his head in the other.  His face screwed up into a tortured expression as his breathing turned into gasping and hot tears escaped his eyes.

How could he have lost Legolas after nearly twenty years of contented bliss?  How could the greatest joy his heart had ever known vanish without any warning?

Gimli staggered out into the sea, heedless of the icy water soaking him to the knees.

“Legolas!” he shouted out to the uncaring ocean waves, “Please do not leave like this!  Please, my heart!  Let me talk to you!  Let me explain!”

Tears were racing down his face, disappearing into his beard.

“Oh Legolas, I am sorry!  I have never been more sorry in my life!  Just let me see you once more!  Please, my love!  I do not ask that you forgive me, just please, please hear me!”

He choked off a sob, hunching over as if he had taken a blow to the gut.

“Please, my love,” he continued begging in a strangled voice, no longer able to force volume from it, “Just grant me one more chance.”

His tears slipped into the briny waters with barely a ripple to mark their addition.

“Please.”

…………………………………………

Gimli stayed in the cove until the sun set, and continued to beg and plead with the tides, heedless of the silence that was his only answer.  

When his throat grew too sore to shout, he whispered beseechingly into the sea breezes.  

When his legs grew too tired to stand, he knelt on the shore and dug his hands into the sands.

As soon as he regained his strength, Gimli would be back on his feet, crying out into the cove again.

He kept up his fervent appeal well into the night, unable to even think of stopping.

He had to see Legolas one more time.  Just long enough to tell him how wretched he felt, how sorry.  Long enough to beg for a chance to make things right.

It wasn’t until almost midday the following day that his family found him.  

Kili’s voice shouting, “He’s here!  I found him!” from above reached his ears as he croaked out entreaties to the grey-green waters.  

Gimli did not look up to see who his cousin had called to, merely kept up speaking.

Kili must have climbed down the path in the cliff’s face to reach the bottom so quickly, not so easy a task now that they were no longer young men.

“Gimli!” Kili said, coming to the redhead’s side, “Cousin, What are you doing out here?  When you did not show up to the smithy, your father sent someone to check your house. We’ve been looking for you and Legolas ever since.”

Gimli drew in a sharp breath at the mention of his missing love.  It didn’t escape Kili’s notice.

“Gimli, where is Legolas?” he asked, clasping Gimli’s shoulders, “Did something happen to him?”

“He found it,” Gimli replied, finally meeting his cousin’s eyes, “He found the sealskin.”

Kili’s eyes widened with understanding.

“Oh, Gimli…” he whispered, horrified for his cousin.

Fili approached the pair, worried by the expressions he saw on their faces.

“What happened?” he asked, looking between the pair, “What’s wrong?”

Gimli just shook his head and looked back down at the sand below him.

Kili took it upon himself to answer in his cousin’s stead.

“Legolas found his skin.  He’s gone.”

Gimli’s hands tightened to fists.

“What?” Fili exclaimed, “I thought that was lost ages ago!”

By this point, all of Clan Durin had long since guessed the origins of their mysterious pale member.  It was a practically a Clan secret at this point, although none would ever confirm it.

“Not lost,” Gimli choked out, “hidden.”

“Hidden?” Fili asked, “But who would hide…”

Realization hit him.

“No.  Gimli, please say you did not do this.”

Gimli held his silence.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!”

“Fili!” Kili cut in, “He is not the only one to share blame in this.”

Fili squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, drawing in a long, slow breath.

“I do not have the fortitude to deal with this here.  We will go to Castle Durin and discuss this there,” Fili said stiffly, turning towards the crack in the cliff wall.

“You may go,” Gimli said, “But I will stay here.”

“This is not the time to be stubborn, Gimli”

Gimli’s dark eyes flashed.

“If there is ever a time to be stubborn, it is now,” he growled, “I will stay here.”

“Gimli…”

“You will not move him,” Kili reasoned, “Come.  I will go with you and tell you what I know.”

He ushered his brother to the caves they first ever entered the cove through.

“It is long since time I told you.”

……………………………………………

Gimli had several other members of his family try to coax him away from the sea’s edge that day, including his mother and father, but no matter how they tried, Gimli would not leave.

Perhaps the most notable instance was when Clan Head Thorin came to see him in the evening.

“You must let this be, Gimli,” Thorin told him.

“I am sorry,” Gimli replied, “But I cannot do that.”

Thorin tried to reason with him, tried to tell him that he could not understand what he was dealing with, but Gimli could not be moved.

Thorin told him that no Selkie would ever choose to leave the sea after being kept from it for so long.  Gimli conceded that that might be true, but he still would not leave.

Eventually, Thorin asked him what good he possibly thought could come from this.

“He deserves to know why,” Gimli told his Clan Head, “If he will hear nothing else, he at least deserves to know why I did what I did.”

Thorin left Gimli to his empty seas after that, undoubtedly more frustrated than when he came, but Gimli could not bring himself to worry over it.  He had enough on his mind and his heart.

…………………………………….

Gimli kept his vigil on the cove all throughout the night and the following day, and kept calling out whenever he could find the voice to do so.  His heart just could not accept leaving, it would be too much like admitting that Legolas was truly gone from his life.

He could not bring himself to do more than nibble on the food and swallow a few mouthfuls of the water his mother brought him.  His stomach was too unsettled by churning shame and grief.

Neither could he make himself sleep for fear of missing anything, despite the weariness that settled heavily on him.

The third night was heralded by harsh winds stirring the seas as they whipped about the cove and howled across the top of it.  Heavy clouds blotted out any stars that dared to show themselves, and with them, what little light Gimli could see by.

Gimli tried to yell into the night, but his voice was swallowed by the roaring ocean.

Thick raindrops began to fall, stinging Gimli’s skin wherever they struck and soaking through what little the sea spray had missed.  With them came the tempestuous crack and rumble of thunder, and brilliant bolts of lightning, that seared his eyes with their light before he could make sense of what they had revealed.

Throughout it all, the water was a black, writhing mass, steadily rising up the shoreline.  

Gimli’s eyes flickered to the mouth of the cave, mortal panic urged him to flee, but even in the midst of that panic, his heart could not bear the thought of leaving the cove.

He climbed atop one of the boulders when the waves lapped against his ankles and no sand remained above them.

For all that his will stood firm, his body trembled with fatigue as he was buffeted by the storm, and he could barely get any grip on the slippery stone.

He felt dread rise along with the inky waters that swiftly claimed his perch.

Then Gimli’s grip failed, and in an instant of horrified shock, he was swept out into the roiling deep.

He struggled against the frightful currents, but his exhausted body could not keep his head above the turbulent waters.  Everytime he broke the surface to gasp another lungful of air, a new wave swept over his head to force more briny water down his throat.

Finally, he could no longer drag himself to the surface, and slipped into the deep’s frigid grasp.

It was in that moment that Gimli knew he would die there.

There would be no body to be buried.  But then, perhaps that was the only fate that could befall any man who had the gall to keep a child of the sea from it.  Mayhaps this storm was just the ocean dispensing its justice for the great wrong he had perpetrated.

He found a strange sense of peace in that.  

Just then, a flash of lightning illuminated the waters around him, revealing a large, sleek shape approaching him through the murky sea.

The flash faded almost instantaneously, and Gimli was again swamped by darkness.

Something bumped into him from below and he flinched away from it instinctively.  The unknown creature followed his small retreat, bumping into him again insistently.  This time Gimli could not move away, and had to just let himself be pushed wherever the creature wished.

It was not as if it could do anything to him that the storm would not accomplish on its own.

He felt justifiably shocked and confused to find himself forced above the ocean’s surface.  He sucked in a desperate lungful of the sweet air he had thought he would never taste again.

Another wave broke over his head, but he found himself buoyed by the creature, saved from sinking a second time.  He threw his arms around its neck, and pressed his face into soft, slick fur, coughing up mouthfuls of seawater.  The first thought his hazy mind could conjure up was of how warm the creature was.  Until then, Gimli hadn’t realized how numbed by the cold he had been.  

He finally blinked enough seawater from his eyes to make out exactly what his savior was.  His heart leapt to his throat when he realized that it was a seal his arms were wrapped around.

He felt like he might be crying, but his face was too wet to tell.

Gimli simply buried his head against its warm neck, and hung on as the seal fought its way inland.  

Even for the seal, his seal his heart insisted, the sea was rough and the progress was slow.  It took everything Gimli had left just to hold on as the seal struggled to make it back to the cove.  

When they finally reached it, their task got no easier. The cove was completely flooded.  Waves hurled themselves against the cliff walls and attempted to drag the struggling pair along with them, even as the tides sought to drag them back out to sea.  Gimli could feel the seal’s muscles strain as it tried to forge a third path to the mouth of the cave.

The waters swirled wildly amongst the boulders that guarded it, and Gimli found himself bracing his weary legs on one, pushing off from it to give them extra force to cut through them.  The pair were jostled against the cave walls, but finally made it to higher ground on the other side.

Gimli panted where he lay on the sandy ground, still clutching the seal about its neck and coughing up all of the seawater he had swallowed.  He couldn’t believe he was still alive, tired beyond anything he had ever experienced, but alive nonetheless.  And what was even more, Legolas was here in his arms, breathing hard from the exertion.  It was more of a miracle than Gimli could have ever hoped for.

Now there was no doubt he was crying.

The seal raised its head to move away and Gimli’s arms slipped to the ground, unable to hold on any longer.  

Panic rose inside him at the thought that Legolas could leave him again so easily.  He tried to reach out, but could only summon up the energy to jerk a hand in the seal’s direction.

He tried to speak, but his tortured throat could only produce another cough.  The seal slowly turned back towards the water, not once looking Gimli’s way.

This couldn’t happen.  He couldn’t let Legolas slip away again with so much silence between them.

“Please,” he finally managed to rasp, “Legolas.  Please don’t leave.”

Gimli could hear how rough and weak his voice sounded, and how far short his words fell from what he needed to say.

But the seal stopped moving.

Gimli almost closed his eyes in relief.

“I am sorry,” he went on, ignoring the pain in his throat, “So sorry.  There are no words yet created to tell you how sorry I am.”

His heart thundered in his chest as he let his shame and regret spill out.

“I hurt you, and I will never stop regretting the pain I brought you.  I never wanted to cause you harm, but I was afraid, so afraid, that you would leave.”

The seal was tense, still facing away from Gimli.

“I love you so much.  I couldn’t bear the thought of living without you,” he confessed, “I was so happy to have you there with me.  So happy you loved me.  I knew my life would never be complete without you.”

Gimli was shivering as the cold night air seeped through his sodden clothes, and he had to fight the chattering of his teeth to keep talking.  He had to try to make Legolas understand.

“I truly didn’t know where your skin was when it disappeared, but when it came to me later… I always meant to return it, but every time I thought of giving it back, the idea of going back to the way things were before, only seeing you for such little time, hurt so much that I kept silent.

“And it was so painful to see your grief, but I couldn’t make myself let go.”

Gimli squeezed his eyes shut, as all of his pain, guilt, and desperation knotted themselves up in his chest.

“I wasn’t strong enough.  At times I hated myself for doing this to you, and nothing I do will ever make it right.  But I love you so much.  I would do _anything_ to atone for it.  Anything.”

He opened his eyes to look at his love, knowing that this could very easily be the last time he saw him.

“I do not deserve forgiveness.  But please, give me one more chance to do better.  I swear I will never hurt you again,” he whispered as he fought to stave off the exhaustion that attempt to claim him,  “Just please, Legolas, please let me try to make it up to you.”

Finally, the seal turned to him.  Gimli looked up into dark eyes that burned with such anger that he felt scalded by their gaze.  He was utterly bare to those eyes, flayed open with his vulnerabilities exposed. Still, he did not flinch away from them, and held their gaze as his vision blurred in and out of focus.

“I am so sorry, my love.”

Those burning eyes were the last thing he saw as he finally succumbed to sleep.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! RL just kind of drained the will to write out of me for a while. I had to get this posted quickly because I wouldn't get another chance to post it for another five days, so the last part of this chapter is unbetaed.

(OMG! Taciturntentacles did this wonderful drawing of Legolas for the fic![ look at it!](http://taciturntentacles.tumblr.com/post/108764529091/been-reading-nothing-doth-fade-but-suffers-a))

 

 

The first thing Gimli knew when he woke was that he wished he were still asleep.  His whole body ached, his head was pounding, and his throat felt like it had been scraped raw.

 

He groaned and shifted against the mattress as he wondered what he had done to get himself in such a state.  Then memories of the last few frantic days came racing back.

 

He jerked up with a gasp, his eyes snapping open.  His battered body protested the sudden movement and he fell back to the mattress with a hiss.  He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed his rising grief.  Legolas saved his life, after everything Gimli had done to him.  Somehow, that only made Gimli’s guilt worse.

 

Gimli gingerly rolled his head to the side, and his breath caught in his throat.  

 

Sitting next to the bed was Legolas, his sealskin held firmly to his chest and anger still smoldering in his eyes.  It was the most wondrous sight he could have imagined.

 

“I have some things to say,” Legolas said, his voice carefully measured, “And you will lay there and listen.”

 

Gimli nodded, still unsure that this was real and not just a vision conjured up by his wishful mind.

 

Legolas took a deep breath as if to steady himself, and then began, “I have never been so betrayed in all my life.  I loved you.  I trusted you.  During all those years of longing for a home I could never return to, and suffering through the pain of being separated from the sea, you were my only comfort.”

 

Legolas paused and shut his eyes for a moment, obviously struggling to remain calm.

 

“And then I found this,” his arms tightened around the folded sealskin, “hidden away _in our house._ ”

 

Gimli would have given anything to get rid of the devastation in Legolas’s voice.

 

“And I realized that the house we shared for all of that time was a _prison_ ,” his voice broke, “You kept me captive.  I just hadn’t been able to see the bars.”

 

Gimli ached to take Legolas in his arms and comfort him the way he had so many times before, but he knew that it would not be welcomed.  Not now.  That thought sent an acute pain knifing through his heart.

 

“And I am so angry, Gimli, more angry than I knew I could become,” Legolas’s sea blue eyes were bright with unshed tears, “So why couldn’t I stop loving you?” he asked as his face twisted with grief.

 

Gimli could hardly believe his ears.

 

“Why do your words still move me?” the Selkie’s voice grew louder with each question.

 

“Why couldn’t I let you drown!”  Legolas abruptly buried his face in the soft grey fur of his pelt, breathing harshly as he tried to get his emotions back under control.

 

Gimli was silent, hardly daring to breathe.

 

Finally, Legolas met Gimli’s eyes with a determined stare.  

 

“I will _not_ be kept from the sea again,” he whispered harshly, “I will not suffer it.”

 

Gimli held his gaze, trying to project all of the sincerity he felt.

 

“I swear on my soul, I will never be responsible for causing you that kind of pain again,” Gimli solemnly promised, ignoring the ache of his throat, “I will never again buy my happiness at the cost of your own.”

 

He wished there was some way he could prove it, someway he could really make Legolas believe him, but he knew it was out of his hands now.  Whatever happened next was Legolas’s choice.

 

A tense silence pervaded the room as the Selkie studied him closely.  What Legolas was looking for, Gimli couldn’t say.

 

Finally Legolas seemed to be satisfied with his investigation and leaned back in his seat.  The look on his face was completely cool and closed off, with none of the familiar warmth and sparkle Gimli knew.

 

“I cannot forgive you,” Legolas said, and Gimli felt his heart break, “Not now.  I don’t know if I ever can.”

 

He paused to take a breath.

 

“But I’m going to give you one more chance to earn my forgiveness,” he continued, “because even now that I have the sea again, and my family and people, I am still miserable.”

 

Gimli couldn’t breathe.  He had to be dreaming.  There was no possible way that he deserved a second chance, no matter how badly he craved it.

 

“I blame you for that, and that is why I’m giving you a chance to make some reparations.  But this will be on my terms, or not at all,” the Selkie clarified.

 

Gimli nodded.  Of course it would be on Legolas’s terms.  He would do anything Legolas asked of him, because this was already so much more than he deserved.

 

“I will not be staying in our house,” the Selkie explained, “I am going to return to the sea and remain there every day, but at night you may meet me on the shore.  I will decide how long those meetings are and what we do during them.

 

“If you can earn my trust again, well, I guess we’ll see where we go from there.”

 

His thumb gently stroked the fur of his pelt as he sighed deeply.

 

“Honestly, I don’t know if that can be accomplished after twenty years of lies,” Legolas murmured, “I find myself questioning everything about our life.  And if somehow it can be done, I am sure it will take a very long time.”

 

“As long as you need,” Gimli promised, “I will be content just to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

 

Legolas studied Gimli for a moment more before he nodded and stood to his feet.

 

“It’s already morning,” he said as he turned to the door, “I must return home.  I will let Ma know where you are so she can see to your care.”

 

He walked out of the bedroom with nothing more than, “Meet me on the shoreline when you’re recovered,” and the fading sound of his barefeet padding against the floor.

 

Gimli just stared at the empty doorway, as their conversation kept running through his head.  He couldn’t believe that he was actually given the opportunity to make this right!  And he was going to do better this time.  He swore it.

 

He couldn’t determine if he  felt like laughing in elation or weeping in relief.  He ended up doing some strange combination of the two along with some grimacing in pain.  But the state of his body meant nothing.

 

Nothing mattered as long as he had another chance.

 

……………………………………………….

 

Gimli spent more than a week in his mother’s tender care as his body recuperated.

 

She had bustled in shortly after Legolas left, her skirts billowing and cheeks red from the trek to the cottage.  As a flurry of motion she had gotten him settled while simultaneously berating him for his foolishness.  All of it.

 

Gimli accepted her scathing commentary with the shamefaced grace of all scolded sons.

 

Still, where her tongue was sharp, her hands were gentle.  Her care was a soothing balm after the traumas of the last few days.  

 

Ma listened patiently while Gimli told her of what passed the night before as she held his hand in a white knuckled grip.  He heard her mutter a quiet prayer of gratitude for Legolas’s intervention.  And when he told her of the chance he had been granted, she gathered both of his hands up and told him to take it very seriously.

 

“It is more than anyone could have hoped for,” she said, “I know you, my son.  You have a great heart, but you must not let your mind poison it with doubts.  Not in this matter.”

 

Then she had rolled up her sleeves and gone to put the kettle on, calling, “We must see about getting you well, my lamb.  You are going to have much work to do.”  And Gimli felt his spirits soar at the idea.

 

Unfortunately, his body was not as easily repaired as his spirits.

 

The aches and pains from his night in the storm felt bad enough.  It was a credit to his mother that she did not flinch at the sight of the large, purpled, discolored patches of Gimli’s skin or the scrapes and cuts that still glistened a brilliant red.  She simple coated them with salves and wrapped them.  There were other matters that arose, less visible, but far more concerning.  

 

Before the first day was out, Gimli developed a fever and a rattling cough that lingered despite his mother’s best efforts.  The recovery was frustratingly slow, and every night that passed with only feverish dreams of seals, and songs, and golden hair left him feeling bereft in the morning.

 

The first day that Gimli was finally free of fever and strong enough to be up on his feet all he could think about was getting down to the shoreline.

 

……………………………………………..

 

Gimli’s eyes scanned the moonlit sands as he stepped out of the cave passage that night.  He let out the breath he had been holding, stifling a lingering cough, as he spotted Legolas.

 

The Selkie was perched on the same boulder from that first fateful night so long ago.  To Gimli’s eyes he looked just as ethereal as then, back when Gimli could not believe that such a being existed outside of his dreams.  Unlike that first night, there was no canvas sail wrapped about Legolas.  Instead, he had his pelt draped around himself, its soft fur shone like polished silver in contrast to his marble pale skin.  Gimli was struck by the realization that this was the first time he had ever seen the sealskin fully laid out.  It had always been folded up before.  

 

Gimli took a step forward but stopped short as something in front of Legolas’s boulder shifted.

 

In his daze he had completely failed to notice that three seals were nestled in the sand.   The largest of the three, the seal in the middle with a starburst of dark markings at the crown of its head, lifted itself and approached him.  The smaller two lifted their heads and watched Gimli with dark, focused eyes.  Legolas watched the encounter from the corner of his eye, but made no move to turn away from the sea.

 

Gimli gulped as the seal lumbered up to him.  He had to force himself to stay still when it stopped within a foot of his spot.  Its dark, intelligent gaze left Gimli feeling like metal in the forge being scrutinized for any flaws that could cause a break.  The seal snorted, and Gimli got the impression that it had found him wanting.

 

Suddenly the seal reared up and tossed its head towards the sky.  Gimli’s thoughts stuttered as he was struck by just how enormous the creature was.  His head only reached the top of the line of dark markings running down the seal’s belly.  The creature fell back to the sand with a bellow, and Gimli stumbled back a few steps purely on instinct.  Gimli’s heart raced at a frantic pace as the seal’s roar carried on until it finally ended with a snarl.

 

Then with another snort, it turned and lumbered back to its spot by Legolas and the other two seals.

 

Legolas finally moved when it nudged him with the snout of its large head.  Gimli watched as his Selkie embraced the seal’s thick neck, and accepted a nuzzle from it.

 

Gimli’s heart finally slowed from its jackrabbit pace as the large seal slipped into the sea and disappeared with more dignity than he had known seals were capable of.

 

“What…?” Gimli whispered, truly unsure of just what had happened.

 

“He simply wanted to remind you whose beach this is,” Legolas replied, his voice as cool as the expression on his face.  Neither gave any hints as to his thoughts on the matter.

 

It was strange and unsettling to Gimli.  Even in the beginning when they had been so tentative and guarded around each other, Legolas had never seemed so closed off.  It made his heart ache a bit to see how far they had slipped from the easy warmth of the last twenty years.

 

“You have recovered,” Legolas said.

 

Although it had not been a question, Gimli still replied with a, “Yes.”

 

Legolas hummed as if he had no other response, positive or negative, to contribute.  It was a subtle twist of the dagger lodged in Gimli’s heart.

 

As Gimli made to speak, Legolas slid from his perch.

 

“Then I will see you tomorrow night,” the Selkie said, walking into the surf, “That is all I desired to know this night.”

 

“Legolas.”

 

One of the two remaining seals lifted its head with a flash of bared teeth as Gimli took a step towards him.  Gimli headed the warning and remained where he was.

 

“I am sorry,” he said quietly to Legolas’s back.

 

Legolas made no reply.  He only removed his sealskin with a flick, settled it over himself like a cloak in a single, smooth motion, and dove into the sea.  The whole process barely took a breath to complete.

 

Gimli retreated the way he came, with two pairs of dark eyes still watching him until he disappeared from sight.

 

……………………………………………

 

The following night’s rendezvous was as brief as the first.  Legolas would not get within ten feet of him, and barely glanced in Gimli’s direction.  What little he said was cold and blunt.  

 

The whole affair was conducted under the dark gaze of a pair of seals bobbing in the surf.  The same pair that had lingered the night before if Gimli was to guess.

 

Soon after it had began, Legolas was sliding back into the water, Gimli’s soft apology, “I am sorry,” again the last thing said between them.

 

…………………………………………..

 

Their meetings carried on in this manner for nearly several weeks.  Terribly curt and carefully supervised.

 

It was difficult for Gimli to bear, and at times he felt as if the only thing he had truly gained was the lingering cough that just would not go away.  

 

He tried to go about his days as he had always done, but Legolas’s absence was a conspicuous hole in his life.  And as Gimli explained to Kili’s teary eyed daughter that her Uncle Legolas wouldn’t be around to make any shell necklaces for her, he realized just how big a hole Legolas’s departure had left in his clan altogether.

 

Sometimes Legolas would ask about them.  He would inquire after Gimli’s ma and da, their friends, or the clan’s children, but even then he seemed distant.  

 

Gimli would fill him in and then Legolas would nod to himself and return to the sea, but not before Gimli murmured another, “I am sorry.”

 

……………………………………………

 

It was nearly a month later when things finally started to change.  

 

Gimli had been relating a story about Kili and Tauriel when his blasted cough interrupted him.  It was a frustratingly common occurrence nowadays.  

 

When the coughing finally passed, he noticed Legolas regarding him with one delicate eyebrow raised.

 

“You said you were recovered,” Legolas said.

 

Gimli cleared his throat. “As well as I can be,” he replied, “It’s just a cough.  An annoyance.”

 

Legolas just quietly studied him with a vaguely displeased expression before heading back to the surf.

 

“I am sorry,” Gimli said as he had every night.

 

Legolas paused a moment before saying, “Get some rest,” and diving back into the sea.

 

There was no warmth in the words themselves, but as he watched Legolas disappear along with his steadfast chaperones, Gimli felt something kindle inside him.

 

………………………………………………

 

The next night, Legolas dropped a small satchel woven out of fishing net twine into Gimli’s hand.  Inside, Gimli found small pellets of packed herbs he couldn’t identify.  He pulled one out to inspect it in the moon light.

 

“Take one before you go to sleep every night,” Legolas explained unprompted, “they should help soothe your cough.”

 

The Selkie cocked his head to one side consideringly, “You may want to soak it first though.  I don’t think they’ve ever been used dry.”

 

One of their pair of chaperones snorted from where it was lounging on a boulder.

 

“You never know what could be important,” Legolas snipped back at it.  

 

And for the first time it struck Gimli that the seals that constantly flanked Legolas were more than just judging eyes, they were… individuals.  They must be dear to Legolas, friends or confidants.  It was a strange thing to realize, but somehow the Selkies had never seemed like people to Gimli, even after knowing Legolas.

 

It may have been only a small step taken that night, but after his parting apology, Gimli felt as though maybe he was learning to be better for his love.  And just maybe, Legolas was starting to care for Gimli again.  If only a little.

 

……………………………………………….

 

Things began to change after that night.  Their time together began to include more conversations that were genuinely enjoyable, especially once Gimli began to ask about Legolas’s home.

 

It was a topic that they had avoided during their time together, because of the homesickness Legolas suffered.  Now though, Legolas told him about the sweeping halls of his people, hidden under the shorelines where humans could not go.  He spoke of sweeping kelp forests teeming with life, treasures encrusted with pearls, and walls covered in iridescent shells.

 

The night Gimli asked Legolas about their chaperones, who had taken to either lounging nearby or chasing each other through the waves, he learned that they were not Legolas’s friends.  They were his older brothers.

 

The pair popped out of the ocean as soon as they realized that they had become the topic of conversation.  Gimli hadn’t been able to keep from laughing as the pair lumbered up to where Legolas and Gimli were sitting, listening intently and disagreeing with insistent barks whenever they objected to something Legolas said about their character.  Legolas gleefully ignored their protests.  Gimli had almost forgotten how good it felt to laugh together.

 

Things changed in other ways as well.

 

During the day, Gimli found that Legolas would periodically follow Clan Durin’s fishing boats, herding fish into their nets.  

 

Other times a very friendly seal would bring beautiful shells to the children that played on the shorelines.

 

Slowly, Legolas the seal was weaving himself into the lives of Clan Durin just as securely as Legolas the man had.

 

There were still setbacks, and the progress Gimli made towards proving his sincerity was slow, but every tiny step forwards was worth it.  He had to remind himself to be patient and let Legolas take his time, no matter how much even the slightest sign of affection made him want to wrap the Selkie up in his arms and never let go.  But every night, when Gimli professed, “I am sorry,” he remembered just why he couldn’t do that.

 

It was a bitter reminder, but one he needed.  

 

………………………………………………..

 

Finally, more than a year since the sealskin was rediscovered, Legolas decided not to slip back into the sea.

 

After assuring his brothers that he would be back in a few days, he followed Gimli back to town, still draped in his silvery pelt.  

 

They first went to their cottage, which Gimli had been dutifully keeping in repair.  Inside, the two of them filled the hollow under the loose hearthstone and wedged it firmly in place.  It was a silent vow.  A promise that there was no longer a place for secrets between them from that point on.

 

Then Legolas had changed into some of the clothing Gimli had saved for him, put his pelt into a satchel he slung over his shoulder, and gone out, barefoot, into the rosy dawn with Gimli at his side.

 

They walked to Castle Durin to visit Kili and his family first.  Legolas was greeted by a pair of small arms thrown around his waist and a face buried in his stomach as Kili’s daughter chanted, “You’re back! You’re back! You’re back!”

 

After that warm reunion, and Kili swearing that he would be forever at Legolas’s service they came across Fili and Thorin conversing in the corridor.  Fili enthusiastically welcomed Legolas back.  Once he drew Gimli into a conversation Legolas met Thorin’s eyes.

 

The Head of the Clan gave him a questioning look, to which Legolas responded with a silent nod.  There was a slight loosening of Thorin’s shoulders, like very well hidden relief, and he nodded in return.  The whole exchange went unnoticed by the other two.

 

After parting Legolas and Gimli went into the town proper to visit all of the places they used to frequent before ending the day at Gimli’s parent’s house.

 

Gimli’s Ma embraced the two of them tightly and would not let them go until Gloin told them that they would stay for supper under no uncertain terms.  Legolas was so moved by their welcome that he even ate the greens on his plate without complaint, and only minimal grimacing.  

 

As they returned to their cottage, Legolas felt a sense of peace settle over him.  His fingers drifted over the satchel at his side as he crossed the threshold.

 

Finally he felt like he had found the shore where his two worlds met.  

 

He went happily into Gimli’s arms, embracing him tightly as Gimli whispered, “I am sorry,” in his ear.

 

A sea breeze stirred the seashell chimes, carrying their gently tones into the cottage.  Legolas pulled back and gently cupped Gimli’s face.  

 

“I know, my love,” he quietly replied, before pressing his lips to Gimli’s in a tender kiss.

 

It felt like forgiveness.

 

………………………………………………

 

Gimli could not fathom the idea of sleeping that night; couldn’t even consider missing a minute of Legolas resting peacefully beside him for something as insignificant as sleep.  He reverently tucked a strand of hair behind Legolas’s ear and marvelled that he somehow had been given a chance to see this sight again.

 

Just then there was a knock at the door.  Gimli’s brows furrowed, as he wondered who in their right mind would come calling this deep into the night.

Legolas didn’t stir as Gimli slipped out of bed and pulled on a shirt as he went to get the door.  Grumbling quietly to himself he grabbed the door handle, prepared to give a good scolding to whoever was on the other side.

 

He pulled the door open and the words died on his lips.

 

Standing in the threshold was a tall figure, with pale skin and a strong brow.  He looked down on Gimli with eyes as icy as the cold expression on his face.  He was cloaked in a long robe of woven kelp fronds, decorated with iridescent shells that caught the moonlight.  A fishing net strung with pearls was draped over his right shoulder and on his pale head sat a crown of red coral.  A silvery sealskin, the largest Gimli had ever seen, was fastened at his throat and fell over his left shoulder like a cape.  Its fathomless eyes seemed to stare at Gimli with the same undisguised disdain as its wearer.  A starburst of dark markings crowned its head.

 

Gimli felt as if he might be faint.

 

“I hope you understand that the only reason you live is because your death would pain my son,” the stranger said, “He has suffered enough because of his... association with you.”  

 

There was something deeply unsettling about his voice, like a stretch of still ocean with any number of nightmarish things lurking unseen beneath its placid surface.

 

“Legolas is very dear to me,” he continued, “There is precious little I would not do to see that he is happy.”

 

His icy eyes narrowed.

 

“See to it that my youngest never has a reason to regret returning to you.  Or there will be no place you can go where my wrath will not find you.  If you remain near the seaside the very oceans will rise up to devour you.  If you flee inland the rivers will flood their banks to sweep you into my grasp.  If you ever think you have found a sanctuary where the waters cannot reach you my vengeance shall fall with the rains and wash you from the face of the earth.  Am I understood”

 

“You have my word,” Gimli choked out around the remembered taste of salt water filling his lungs.

 

“Keep your word,” the stranger replied, “and I shall keep mine.”

 

It was frightening how that smooth voice could carry the same promise of savagery as any beastly growl.

 

“I understand,” Gimli whispered.

 

The stranger gave a disdainful sniff.

 

“Then I have nothing more to say to you,” he said and turned away, “Now there is a treaty I must see to.”

 

And with that he strode away down the path, moonlight gleaming on his pelt’s silvered coat.

 

Gimli closed the door in a daze.  He fumbled to the nearest chair and sat down hard.  A cold sweat lay damp over his skin and his heart hammered in his chest.  Gimli’s cough flared up and he had to try to stifle the sound.

 

Once it passed and he felt he could stand again, Gimli wandered to the doorway of their bedroom and leaned against the doorframe.  There was no doubt, he had been visited, warned, by the Selkie King.  He gazed at Legolas, still sleeping peacefully in their bed, undisturbed by anything that had just passed.  A gentle smile touched Gimli’s lips.

 

Even without the Selkie King’s threat, he already knew that the greatest treasure of the seas was in his care.

 

And he knew that it would not always be easy, that he would have to share Legolas with the sea, but as he slid back into bed, he thought that if his Selkie could find a way to trust in him again, he could find a way to trust Legolas’s constancy.

 

For now, he would just enjoy having him near again.

 

………………………………………………..

 

In the years that passed Legolas would sometimes disappear for days at a time beneath the ocean waves, but Gimli never appeared to worry.  Because they both knew that no matter how strongly Legolas felt the pull of the sea, he would always return to Gimli, barefoot with salt clinging to his skin.

 

Now that he had the freedom to do so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mirrormere](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4462019) by [Lasgalendil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil)




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